Anya Kamenetz
The Stolen Year: How COVID Changed Children’s Lives, and Where We Go Now
Public Affairs, 2022
352 pages
NPR education reporter Anya Kamenetz pulls no punches in documenting the impact of the pandemic on children and families across the country. As school closures that were expected to last 2-3 weeks continued month after month, learning stalled, depression and anxiety increased, parents were forced to choose daily between working and childcare, and mothers, particularly, were forced out of the workforce.
Nearly one-third of families with children reported being food-insecure between April and November 2020. On an average day that spring, 1/3 of middle and high school kids in LA failed to participate in online learning. Here in DC, in Ward 7, 55% of students lacked the high-speed Internet access they needed to participate effectively in virtual classes.
By turns angry and hopeful, Kamenetz explores the history of the systems that failed children during the pandemic: schools that are expected to make up for society’s failings, child care that takes the form of a luxury rather than a right, child protection systems that police rather than help families–especially families of color, the unequal division of labor between men and women, and on and on.
But she also sees signs of hope in mutual aid models to support kids, parents, and teachers; in approaches like flexible, individualized instruction that helped students continue to learn; and in efforts to elevate issues like child care on the national stage.
Below, Kamenetz talks with Eye on Education’s Fred Martino about what she saw in reporting the book.
